Seth Butcher, who picks and sorts the fruit at Hatcher Mango Hill in Lantana, takes a bite out of a ripe mango. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star BELOW RIGHT: John and Pearl with the original Hatcher mango tree. Photo provided
Faithful fans turn out for a taste of what may be the last season at Hatcher Hill
By Jan Norris
On a natural ridge in sleepy Lantana 60-some years ago, John Hatcher set out several fruit trees and plants on a 4-acre nursery plot. He was an avid gardener who began grafting mangoes, working until he developed a big beauty of one in the late 1940s.
Decades later, that ridge is now surrounded by development and overlooks a crowded I-95. But it’s still covered in mango trees and is named for the late patriarch of the family.
Hatcher Mango Hill, continuously run by John Hatcher’s heirs, is where you find Hatcher mangoes — 2-, 3- and 4-pound blushing red fruits, giants in their category, growing on decades-old trees. Mostly a cross between Haden and Brooks varietals, they are sweet, fat and ultra juicy, with no fiber strands, making them the ideal fruit according to their legions of fans.
“I’ve been to mango festivals and mango tastings. I’ve eaten mangoes in Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico and Guatemala, and Hatchers are the best I’ve ever tasted,” said Tory Malmer of West Palm Beach. She’s a longtime Hatcher buyer.
“I eat chunks for breakfast, in fruit salad or make fresh mango salsa,” she said. “Once a year I make mango ice cream or sorbet.”
She’ll ship some to a former boss in North Carolina — another Hatcher fan and former Hypoluxo resident — and to her Kentucky family who loves them.
The Hill’s mango season is short, with ripening fruit on the trees starting in late June and, barring big storms, hanging on until mid-August.
Katie Hatcher bags mangoes for customer Pam Case, whose parents knew the Hatchers in the 1940s. With the property up for sale, Case says it appears that ‘another part of history will be lost.‘ Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
This year’s crop, however, could be the last at the Hill. The grove and house on the ridge are for sale, as per a family trust. This news has rippled throughout the community like the smell of rotten fruit. Current owner Katie Hatcher, John’s granddaughter, said there are a lot of upset mango aficionados out there.
“I don’t want them to shoot the messenger and be thinking I’m the bad guy. My son is upset about it — nobody wants to see it happen,” Hatcher said. “But this is what my mom and dad had written up in the family trust. They wanted everything to be divided equally when they passed.”
John Hatcher’s four children inherited equal parts of the grove after he died. Many in the family worked the grove in season, caring for the trees and other plants on the property.
It was John’s youngest son, Richard, who became the last surviving heir, eventually buying out most of the property and taking over the grove’s business.
Opened to the public
Richard and his spouse, Marilynn — Katie’s parents — opened the Hill’s mango stand to the public in 1983. They expanded the business with shipping and selling Hatcher trees.
With only word-of-mouth advertising, the stand took off. Long lines of cars wrapped onto the road fronting the grove every season. A chain was added across the main driveway, put up to prevent trespassers and control traffic.
Katie Hatcher (l-r) stands with her mother, Marilynn, and cousin Francis Perkins in an undated photo. Photo provided
Tourists and locals alike came by each afternoon in season for the just-picked mangoes, pulled only as they ripened. First Hadens in early June, then Keitts and Zills, and finally the Hatchers.
“We got to know a lot of the customers,” Katie said. “They’d come back every year. We’d meet the families, and watch the kids grow up.”
She’s retired from the city of Boynton Beach as an urban planner. She turned the farm work over to Seth Butcher while taking care of her mother before her death in 2021.
Butcher does it all — picks the fruit from the 120 or so trees, sorts them and runs the stand. He also makes mango jam and sells it on site.
He got his experience selling at Union Square Greenmarket in New York City. A native of Hyde Park in New York, Butcher remembers his mom and aunt making jams in summer and fall after picking berries and apples.
Now he picks mangoes, and because culls and dropped fruit are still edible, he figured jams were a good way to use them. “My first batch was awful, but I kept tweaking it till I got it just right,” he said.
Customers ask for the small-batch jam and get upset when he runs out.
Also sold at the stand are Marilynn Hatcher’s cookbook, Hatcher’s Mango Thrills. The family matriarch was at the stand daily, and helped with the grove until she became too frail to manage. Over the years, she developed hundreds of recipes for mangoes, and compiled the book.
Faithful customers
Recently, Jorge Careaga from Maryland was shopping at the stand with his extended family. “It’s the first place we visit every time we come,” he said. His wife’s family lives here, and they’ve been coming to visit since 2009.
His sister-in-law buys some in advance to have them on hand before they get to the grove, he said.
The retired Marine loves mangoes and says he gets them in Asian markets and sometimes at the grocery stores in Maryland. “But they’re not the same,” Careaga said. “They are nowhere as juicy and sweet.”
Now he learns the business may close. “That really sucks,” he said. “The mangoes are awesome. They are the sweetest and juiciest. I don’t think anybody beats these guys.”
They are so juicy, Careaga says, that when a mango is fully ripe, he just cuts a hole in the top and squeezes it until all the juice is out, then slices it to eat the pulp off the skin. “The only part that is thrown out is the seed.”
Kyle Zeitler and Cody Zeitler adjust a scarecrow announcing a new season for mangoes 18-20 years ago at Hatcher Mango Hill in Lantana. Photo provided
Lake Worth Beach native Greg Rice would watch for the sign signaling the farm’s opening each year, then go in to buy a few mangoes. He says it’s sad to hear the property is up for sale.
“Hatcher is a unique varietal,” he said. “It’s only grown in this area. We hate to see things like this go away. But that property will always be there. It just may be in a different form.”
Still, he’ll miss the mangoes he eats every day during their short season.
“I’ll have to seek out Hatchers,” he said, perhaps from people with backyard trees purchased from the Hill.
“Mangoes are my favorite fruit,” Rice said. He eats them just as they are, peeled and sliced with nothing on them. He leaves freezing the mangoes to his wife, who makes smoothies with the frozen slices.
Nina Kauder, a vegan chef who recently moved from her home in Lake Worth Beach to Buena Vista, Virginia, had to have her yearly fix. So she enlisted a friend to buy and ship two boxes of Hatchers to her. It was a pricey endeavor, more so because “one box hasn’t made it yet,” Kauder said last month.
Hatcher mangoes sell for $2 to $8 each, depending on size. A flat-rate big box is the cheapest way to ship, Kauder said. It holds five to seven fruits.
She found out about Hatchers after reading newspaper stories about the mango. Then each season she drove along High Ridge Road to Hypoluxo Road to see if the “open” sign was hanging on the driveway chain.
As for prepping them to use all year, “I have a friend with a freeze-dryer. I’m going to use that to preserve them this time. I used to use a fruit dehydrator, but I’m in the middle of canning tomatoes and don’t have room in the freezer either this time,” Kauder said.
She was taught to peel them and turn them inside-out into the “hedgehog” shape, but says that doesn’t work on Hatchers — they’re not the right texture.
Another native, Pam Case, grew up in Lantana. Her father helped build the now closed tuberculosis hospital there. Her older siblings went to school with some of the Hatcher kids — in the days when everyone knew everyone else in the small town.
“Whenever we wanted mangoes, we’d just go to Hatchers,” Case said.
She was surprised to hear this may be the last year for the business. “Oh, no! I’m so sorry to hear that. Another part of history will be lost,” she said.
Case ships some Hatcher mangoes to her sister in Georgia. With her own, Case slices them to eat with a banana every morning. She also makes mango milkshakes. “I buy a lot of mangoes and freeze them in slices, then put in a bag. My sister makes mango margaritas from the ones I ship her; she says they’re delicious,” Case said.
Kim McDonald, a Massachusetts transplant who has lived 10 years in this area, learned of Hatcher Mango Hill two or three years ago from a TV news story. “It’s funny. I must have driven past it several times. It’s the best-kept secret,” she said.
Now she learns it’s likely closing after this season. “Oh, no! That’s terrible!”
She recalls tasting one of the mangoes for the first time. “It was incredible. My mom was visiting and I took her to the grove. I have a little niece and nephew; she told them how they were hanging on the trees. She took one home on the plane with her. They were so impressed with this mango. It was nothing like you get in the grocery stores.”
McDonald never was a mango fan — but these changed her mind, she said.
Now what to do? “All good things come to an end. Like the orange groves — it’s really a shame,” she said.
Open till mangoes are gone
Hatcher Mango Hill will remain open as long as it has mangoes to sell, Katie said. “Unless a storm comes along and wipes them out, we will probably have them until early to middle of August.”
After that, all depends on the sale, she said. She’s guessing it will go to a developer for commercial use. “It’s zoned low-commercial, but that could change since they put in the gas station across the street.”
Katie Hatcher said she will move to North Florida, and though she would like to have a Hatcher mango tree in her future yard, it may not be possible because the trees like the heat and mild winters.
“It will be the first house I’ve had that hasn’t had a Hatcher mango tree,” she said.
Her aim is to enjoy the retirement that the Hill’s sale will help provide.
Besides, she says, she knows where to get a Hatcher mango or two from friends and family who have trees.
Hatcher Mango Hill, at 1908 Hypoluxo Road in Lantana, will be open, selling Hatcher and other mangoes, mango jam and recipe books, through mid-August. No trees are available, Katie Hatcher said.
